Globalization And Regional Transformation In Pacific Asia

The world in the last two decades of the twentieth century fundamentally and radically changed at a speed and on a scale never before witnessed. The challenge posed at the beginning of the third millennium is enormous for governments and people the world over. Globalization, along with globalism, continues its unrelenting and accelerating march as it draws more countries, cities, and people closer into interdependent relationships. Globalization and Networked Societies attempts to tease out some of the salient elements of this process, especially as it has affected urban centers in Pacific Asia over the past twenty years. Globalization and rapid economic growth have transformed the region and its cities on varied spatial scales, bringing new opportunities and challenges for governments, the private sector, and individuals. All countries in Pacific Asia are covered in this work, with special attention given to Hong Kong and to China, a late bloomer in the Asia scene but nevertheless one that has experienced phenomenal growth and accelerated globalization in recent decades. The empirical analyses reveal the outcome, dilemmas, and meanings of globalization in the urban-regional scene.

This book focuses on three major areas of change and challenge faced by Hong Kong and the Asia Pacific region: economic globalization, political and social change, and regional patterns of transformation. It not only encourages a retrospective learning from past failures, but also tries to anticipate the challenges of a new century and millennium.

Most books that analyse the crucial subject of globalisation only look at it from a western perspective. This is the first detailed study to look at globalisation specifically in the Asia-Pacific region. An impressive collection of leading, interdisciplinary scholars explore various dimensions of globalisation and their relationship to development processes in the region.

?This rich book goes beyond the usual superficial discussion of the benefits and drawbacks of globalization to focus on the actual dynamic relationship between global forces and Asian adjustments.? ?Ming Wan, George Mason University?A fresh and integrative look at the critical challenges of globalization in Asia.? ?Paul Smoke, New York UniversityGlobalization and Change in Asia explores three decades of adjustment on the part of governments, civil society, and the private sector to the complex new forces of international competition.Recognizing that the benefits of globalization have not accrued equally to all Asian countries, nor to all stratums of society, the authors seek lessons that can help shape development policy to effect the greatest good. Thus, they focus on the essential ingredients of the most broadly successful globalization strategies?strategies that can most optimally respond to the economic, social, and technological challenges that lay ahead.Dennis A. Rondinelli is senior research scholar at Duke University?s Center for International Development, as well as director of the Pacific Basin Research Center at Soka University of America. John M. Heffron is professor of history at Soka University of America and associate director of the Pacific Basin Research Center.Contents: Adjusting to Globalization: Change and Transformation in Asia?the Editors. Global Crossroads: A Shared History of Globalization in the Asia Pacific Region?J.M. Heffron. Economic and Technological Transformation. Globalization and the Asian Economic Response?D.A. Rondinelli. Regional Economic Integration in East Asia?K.G. Cai. Globalizing Asian Business: Dynamics of Change and Adjustment?H.W.-C. Yeung. Information Technology and Economic Development Strategy?S.M. Lee. Adjusting to Globalization Through Skills Development Strategies?S. Kuruvilla. Political and Social Adaptation. Inclusive Governance and Democracy in Asia: Transition and Challenges?G.S. Cheema. E-Government: Applications of Technology to Government Services?C.G. Wescott. Mobilizing Social Capital: Community Responses to Globalization?A. Krishna. Social Protection Policies: Making Globalization Work for All?I. Ortiz. Learning from Experience. Sustaining Progress in a Globalizing Society: Lessons from Asia?the Editors.

The contributors engage with a range of critical and contemporary issues of two key societies in the Asia-Pacific region, Australia and Malaysia. These include foreign policy and national security; multiculturalism and citizenship; the middle class; global governance; migrants and international students.

Globalization, the City and Civil Society in Pacific Asia presents a detailed examination of the underlying issues of urban life in the Far East. Leading authorities on globalization and politics in the region cover key themes of continuity and change: relationships between civil society and the production of urban spaces. Chapters focus on various types of ‘civic spaces’ that provide spaces for life that are autonomous from state and capital ten case studies explore a wide variety of contexts ranging from spaces where lower classes congregated in ancient Chinese cities to cyberspaces of the contemporary internet the history and role of civil society in social and political philosophies of societies in the Pacific Asia region tendencies and issues related to specific types of civic spaces in a given city. Several studies find that great stress has been placed on long-standing community and civic spaces common themes, patterns and issues as well as singularities of each particular context. In this way it can contribute to the broader (mostly Western) literature on society and space the future of cities in Pacific Asia from the perspective of civic space. Can civic spaces be routinely created rather than appropriated through civil society-state-economy struggles? Most research on globalization and civil society has focused on the West, this unique book brings together a tight analysis and a series of ten case studies on Pacific Asian countries. It also theorizes and empirically explores the relationships between civil society and the production of urban spaces.

The rapid postwar economic growth in the Southeast Asia region has led to a transformation of many of the societies there, together with the development of new types of anthropological research in the region. Local societies with originally quite different cultures have been incorporated into multi-ethnic states with their own projects of nation-building based on the creation of "national cultures" using these indigenous elements. At the same time, the expansion of international capitalism has led to increasing flows of money, people, languages and cultures across national boundaries, resulting in new hybrid social structures and cultural forms. This book examines the nature of these processes in contemporary Southeast Asia with detailed case studies drawn from countries across the region, including Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, Singapore and Thailand. At the macro-level these include studies of nation-building and the incorporation of minorities. At the micro-level they range from studies of popular cultural forms, such as music and textiles to the impact of new sects and the world religions on local religious practice. Moving between the global and the local are the various streams of migrants within the region, including labor migrants responding to the changing distribution of economic opportunities and ethnic minorities moving in response to natural disaster.